


The Colors That We Share

by bradmikedan



Category: Life Is Strange 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Adult Daniel Diaz (Life is Strange 2), Adult Sean Diaz (Life is Strange 2), Big Brothers, Brother Feels, Brother/Brother Incest, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Angst, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Brothers, Game: Life is Strange 2 (2018), Little Brothers, M/M, Omega Sean Diaz, POV Daniel Diaz, Protective Siblings, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Incest, Sibling Love, Top Sean Diaz, diazcest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:55:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28536243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bradmikedan/pseuds/bradmikedan
Summary: For six years, Daniel and Sean have led totally separate lives. Then one day, an unexpected letter arrives. An unnamed cry for help. But Daniel knows who it's from, and he knows what he needs to do.
Relationships: Daniel Diaz & Sean Diaz, Daniel Diaz/Sean Diaz
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a bunch of stories in 2020, but never got round to uploading any. Instead, I'd open them every few weeks and rework the same sections over and over. Well, I figured in 2021 I'll make myself upload them in shorter chunks, so there's no choice but to move the story forward. That way, I'll get around to finishing them someday. Hope you enjoy.
> 
> The title of this story and excerpts throughout (and, I'll admit, some of the imagery) are from the song 'Daniel' by Lior, who's from my hometown.

Daniel stares out the window at the southern California landscape. He's watched the pine forests of Oregon give way to immense redwoods, then to rolling hills and valleys, and finally into the scrubby plains that drift past him now. The border can't be far.

Unconsciously, he reaches into the inside pocket of his denim jacket until his fingers brush the piece of paper he keeps there, carefully folded. A page torn from Sean's old sketchbook. He'd know it anywhere. When he traces his fingers over the page he feels a familiar warmth rise from the depths of his chest that, for a while, he wasn't sure he'd ever feel again, bringing with it memories he's long repressed. Of sketches given as birthday presents. Of thumbing through those dog-eared pages just to see the coolest new sketches, even though he knew he shouldn't be poking through his brother's things. He unfolds the page to run his fingers one more time across Sean's ink drawing of a sunset over a languid sea, a beach hut with a sign proclaiming ' _cócteles_ ' in bold letters.

But when he turns it over, that warmth drains away again from his chest into the black pit that's sat at the bottom of his stomach for the past week. Hastily scrawled across the back in the same dark pen are the words ' _enano — ayúdame — por favor'_. Help me. Please.

For years, the mail arriving at the Reynolds house from Puerto Lobos had been the same. Gas station postcards. Polaroids. The occasional sketch and a handful of sand from a faraway beach, accompanied by a few precious words, always unsigned. Then one day, this.

Daniel has never sent anything back. Doesn't know how, or even where. The Feds still watch their phone and mailbox, and clever Sean has never given a return address. For the last two days, his heart has been full to bursting with the thought of finally going to Puerto Lobos, of finally seeing his brother again, but now that the border is almost within sight he's starting to remember that he doesn't even know how he'll find Sean when he gets there. In the same pocket is the one other clue he has: a polaroid with a fragment of their dad's house in the background that he hopes someone will recognise.

It's dark by the time the bus joins the line of banked-up cars at border control. Daniel has hedged his bets on the anonymity of a crappy minibus crammed four immigrant workers across that was probably built before they invented suspension. When the driver stops at the window, his freshly-minted American passport is painfully conspicuous, passed forward in a pile of worn Mexican ones. The man in the booth half-heartedly scans the windows with a flashlight, and Daniel dips his face under his shaggy hair, praying that his passport hasn't thrown up any alerts in their system, like how he's only sixteen, or that he might have killed a man, many years ago.

After what feels like forever, his passport is back in his hands. The bus lurches forward, and Daniel releases the breath he's been holding, he doesn't know for how long. He pushes the hair out of his eyes to glance up at the sign passing overhead.

 _Bienvenidos a México_.


	2. Part 1

_Stepping into a doorway in my mind,_

_This is where you live._

_It's where you live._

_I forgot the things that I could find._

_I have not been in here for years._

Daniel isn't really sure what he expected of the house on the beach. Probably not this, the crumbling mass of whitewashed concrete in front of him. Everything about it looks like it's falling apart from the weight of just having to exist. A band of blue paint that once wrapped around the first floor now peels away lazily under the late afternoon sun. Even the weeds choking the cracked driveway are crisp and brown in the heat, dissolving into a flurry as Daniel brushes past.

But everyone he asked, from the dusty bus stop all the way to the centre of town, pointed him this way when he showed them the polaroid and mentioned the name _Diaz_. This must be the right place.

The front doors are chained shut so he ducks under the garage door, bent so badly out of shape he's amazed how anyone actually managed to get a car in here. Inside, his eyes adjust slowly to the darkness. Here in its cool interior, the place looks less forlorn than from the outside. Hell, it even looks occupied. Greasy rags lay on a workbench. An ancient fridge grumbles away against the back wall. Daniel feels the corners of his lips tug up involuntarily at the old, familiar scent of rubber, of newly-spilled engine oil and paint thinner.

It smells like dad. Fuck, it smells like home.

He lets his bag slide down his shoulder a bit. Calls out, " _Hola?_ "

In Daniel’s pocket, there's a polaroid of Sean and Finn on the beach, the one that has scarcely been out of his hands since he left Beaver Creek. Looking at it, you would think that six years haven't changed Sean much; at least not as much as they've changed Daniel. In it, his face is wide, beaming. His smile is big and goofy. There's color in his skin, a slight sheen of sweat from a long afternoon spent under the hot Mexican sun, and a gleam in his good eye.

But that's not the man who answers. The man who appears through the office door is practically a stranger. Hunched over slightly, he's shorter than Daniel is now, even if it's only by a couple of inches. His short black hair is still scruffy, but he wears a thin beard and goatee. His arms are dotted with more tattoos than Daniel remembers. Only his left eye, dead black and unseeing, gives him away.

"Hi, Sean."

"Daniel…?" he says. " _E_ _nano_? Is that really you?"

Daniel's bag drops to the floor. He's played out this meeting in his mind a thousand times over the last two days, but actually being here, seeing _him_ —well, he's so totally unprepared for it. He realises now he'd only imagined Sean standing in the cool dim of the house, like a cardboard cutout of the brother he remembers. He forgot about the smells that stir up memories of his dad's own garage, a lifetime ago back in Seattle, or the very real sound of his brother's voice, lower now and heavy with fatigue, but as warm as the blanket they used to share, as comforting as the stories he used to tell. It hits Daniel way too hard, and it's more than he can handle.

A tongue-tied moment passes. At some point, he had a whole speech planned. Now he doesn't know what to say.

"Yeah. It's me."

"Holy shit," Sean gapes. "Daniel!" He rushes forward at the mere sound of his baby brother's voice, flinging his tattooed arms around him. Against Daniel's body, his chest starts to heave. "Daniel. I've missed you so fucking much."

And then Daniel's breath is shaking too as he presses into Sean's shoulder, fighting to steady himself against the scent of petrol and salt air and old cigarette smoke. Shit, he promised himself he wouldn't cry. "I missed you too."

"Christ— I can't believe— What, why—" Sean releases him, only slightly, only enough that he can look into his face, unbelieving, as though still convincing himself this isn't all just some wack-ass dream. And seeing his brother here in the flesh helps convince Daniel it's all real too, but even so he worries that if he lets go, all of this will disappear again. His fingers dig into Sean's shoulders. "Wh— what are you even doing here?"

"I got your letter. It sounded like you were in trouble." Digging into the pocket of his skinny jeans, Daniel pulls out the square of sketchbook paper that he's folded and unfolded so many times now that holes have appeared in the corners of the creases. He hands it over. "Sean, is something wrong? Did something bad happen?"

Daniel watches as Sean runs a finger along the torn edge and then unfolds it, reading his own scrawled handwriting back to himself. He exhales, hard. "You know, I never knew if you ever got these. When I sent this… I wasn't even sure if you'd come."

"Of course I got them. The postcards, the polaroids, everything. I read them and kept them, every last one." Daniel says. There's a long silence as Sean steadies himself against a workbench, speechless. Covers his mouth with the back of an oil-stained hand to hide his trembling lip and the tears that threaten to flow.

"Sean. You've gotta tell me what's wrong. I came all the way here to help."

Sean shakes his head. "Later, Daniel. Not tonight. Tonight, we've got way too much to catch up on."


	3. Chapter 3

That night, they fire up the barbecue and light a joint in honor of Daniel's arrival—no, his _homecoming_. Sean goes into town and comes back with beer and enough burgers and hot dogs to feed a whole pack of wolves. No canned ravioli tonight.

Before long, the smoke is rising over their little stretch of beach as the sun sinks into the _Mar de Cortes_ , and the number of beer bottles lined up along the flaking concrete edge of the patio steadily grows. Daniel sits on the warm sand, his back against the concrete's sunward side. This was the Puerto Lobos he'd imagined.

His brother's voice as he works the grill is as low and calm as the waves' slow pull against the sand. He doesn't have much to say—still hasn't said anything about the letter—but wants to know everything about Daniel's life in Beaver Creek.

And the stories come tentatively at first—where do you start, when there's six goddamn years to catch up on? But before long they're tumbling out over one another, racing to catch up on all that lost time. He tells Sean about the day he got his puppy—oh, and the time it got out of the yard and Chris and him tracked it all the way down to the railway opposite their houses. Saved it just before the train came through. About holidays on the coast with their grandparents and the time he went hiking in Yosemite with Chris and his dad. About summers in Away with mom.

Each story feels like finally penning another letter he never got to write, like the bridging of a vast, invisible chasm as immense as the one where they'd spent their last day together. He didn't realise how good it would feel just to be here, to be telling all this to his brother again.

Sean rolls a nearly-spent cigarette between his fingers. He's smiling, but his gaze is far off, distracted. And it's in moments like these that guilt stabs at Daniel. He doesn't mean to brag about this whole life that he abandoned Sean for, that his brother never got to have. But that can't be what's bothering Sean. Hell, he was sixteen already when they left Seattle. He's been there, done that. Did the drugs and kissed the boys. No, they both got to live the lives they chose to live.

There's so much more he wants to tell Sean. About the car he just got for his sixteenth birthday. About fucking _high school_. While the sun sinks into the water and the coals reduce to embers, they catch up on the last six years, over two lives that should've been one life, lived 2000 miles apart.

"Man, you've changed a lot," Sean says as he drops onto the sand beside Daniel. He grasps Daniel's arm, not in the forceful way he used to, but with fingertips testing the lithe muscle.

Daniel shrugs. "It's been six years. We both grew up."

"Yeah, I know, but look at you. Whatever happened to the Daniel with the crazy cartoon t-shirts? The one who bounces off walls? Shit, you even made it all the way down here by yourself."

The corners of Daniel's mouth tug up into the quiet, confident smile he's slowly developed over the past few years. Of course he's had to grow up. He used to think having a big brother made him untouchable. But that was a long time ago; Sean hasn't fought any battles for him for a while. He's had to learn to become untouchable, himself.

Their conversation lulls, and Daniel downs the rest of his beer.

"Want another one, _enano_?" Sean asks, starting to get up.

"Uh— better not," he says, struggling a little. "Don't usually drink this much. Or, you know, at all."

"Not a party animal?"

"Dude," Daniel laughs. "I live with Claire and Stephen. In Beaver Creek. That place is so fucking dead."

"Guessing you don't light up much either, then?" Sean says, hands reaching into his pocket in preparation to roll another one.

"Are you kidding? Claire would literally crucify me."

"Right, got it. No parties, no fun at the Reynolds house," Sean smirks. He pauses, looks at Daniel pointedly over the joint paper held just under his lip. "Girlfriends?"

"Uh, no!"

"You kidding me? Handsome _bastardo_ like you?"

Daniel laughs sheepishly. "Really… no. I mean, there's a couple of girls at school and church, but studies and shit… no time. And, you know… Claire."

"Uh-huh. And can't make Chris jealous, right?"

Daniel shoves him, making him drop the joint. Their laughter fades into silence again, broken only by the flick of Sean's lighter and his deep intake of breath as his face is lit red-orange by the glow.

"What about Finn?" Daniel finally asks. "Where's he?"

"Ha. That _pendejo_?" Sean scoffs, his voice darkening again. He passes the joint to Daniel. "Finn's long gone, man."

"Wait, what? But those photos you sent—wasn't he just here?"

"He was, for like all of one whole week. Then trouble came knocking."

"What trouble?" Daniel sits up. "The one in your letter?" It's the first time he's mentioned it since… well, since.

But Sean skips right over the letter, he's so caught up about Finn. "Yeah, that trouble. He took one look and tucked tail back to the fucking _Estados Unidos_. Motherfucking _hijo de puta_ ," he spits. "I hope I never see his pasty white ass again." He swills down a few more gulps of bitter beer as that last sentence comes out in a slur.

"Jesus, Sean. Maybe you should slow down," Daniel says. Gingerly, he tries to pry Sean's beer from his hand. "Hey, I'm really sorry about Finn. I thought he was a good guy. And I always thought it was kinda cool that you were into him."

"Nah, don't be. It's okay." He finally hands the bottle over, exchanges it for the joint back from Daniel instead. He takes a long, contemplative drag as silence once again spills into the dark between them. Daniel feels the chasm start to grow again, his carefully built bridge losing its footing on the other side.

"Is something wrong, dude?" Daniel asks. Sean's mood was dark to start with, but the booze and weed have made him spiral even more. He kind of wishes he hadn't brought up Finn. "You're being really quiet."

"Nothing. I’m thinking how things are just different between you and me now," Sean shrugs.

Another pang of guilt, and now he's sure he's been bragging too much. He wants to know more about Sean's life in Puerto Lobos, he really does, but Sean has been nothing but guarded all night. What precious few words he's managed to pry from Sean tonight have felt like a physical feat, like wringing the air from his body. He's afraid that if he asks Sean for more now, he might just asphyxiate and fall into that chasm, never to return.

"Yeah, our lives are totally different now. But so what, we can still talk, right? You're still my brother, and I love you."

Sean nods. "I know." Daniel waits for him to answer with his obligatory _I love you too, enano_. But he's stopped, the words seemingly paused just behind his parted lips.

Finally, in a slow, measured voice he says, "Daniel, do you remember when I told you I kissed Finn? How I said I would never lie to you about something like that?"

Daniel's pretty wasted, but the memory of that last morning in Away rushes up quickly through the haze of booze. "Yeah?"

"Well, it turns out I've been lying to myself the whole time." He turns to look at Daniel, his jaw set as though holding back a flood of words, his whole face that of a man about to jump off a cliff. "There's a big fucking lie I've been telling you since you got here."

Daniel looks at him, red eyes wide, like he doesn’t have a fucking clue where this is going—because he doesn't. "Wh— what do you mean?"

Whatever Daniel expected next, he's pretty damn sure it's not Sean's lips on his. The sudden feeling of being kissed by his brother, by a boy—hell, being kissed at all—knocks the wind out of his lungs. Sean's lips are urgent and needy, rough with stubble and bitter with weed and too much alcohol. Daniel grunts out some sort of protest, but is cut off by Sean leaning in hard, bowling him over and taking a line of bottles with them. Instead, his breath staggers when Sean moves over him, the wide v-neck of his shirt falling around Daniel's face, engulfing him in the scent of stale deodorant and old cigarettes rising from his chest. Sean crushes their mouths together, his tongue slipping in between Daniel's teeth. When he feels Sean's calloused hand sliding up his torso, dragging up his t-shirt, Daniel's had enough. He pulls back.

"Dude! What the hell?"

"I love you, Daniel. _Fuck!_ I didn't realise how much, until I heard you say it just then." His good eye is veined, swimming, and Daniel wonders how drunk, or high, or both, he must be.

"No. No way. You're— you're just depressed… and drunk. Do you even know what you're saying right now?"

"I know exactly what I'm saying. Just— please," he leans in again, his lips brushing Daniel's and leaving a trail of bitter smoke before the teen is able to pull away.

"Sean," Daniel pleads, "I'm your brother."

"I know. You're my brother. My Daniel. My _enano_. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen. When I sent you that letter, I didn't know— _couldn't know_ —had no fucking idea that this is how I would feel."

"Sean… I…"

"Please, _enano_. Not a lot of good things happen for me down here. Hell, I can't remember the last time _anything_ good happened. Or at least, the good things don't stay good for long, like Finn," he pauses, and Daniel worries he's about to spiral again, but instead Sean puts his hand on top of his, as rough and as strong as the concrete under it, and it’s almost enough to stop them both from trembling.

Sean kisses him again, softly, tentatively this time, like he's asking permission, even though Daniel knows he's not about to take no for an answer. His mouth is gentle as it covers Daniel's, but his hands shake with barely-concealed desperation as his fingers tangle into the teen’s shaggy hair, all while coercing Daniel’s body to slowly open up under him.

And the worst part? It's that this doesn't feel even remotely wrong. He thought it would be weird, kissing his brother like this, but as he gives himself over he realizes he feels safe, warm and protected under Sean's strong hands. He's missed Sean for so long, wanted so badly for Sean to be in his world again that any way he can be close to him, even this, feels like more than he has any right to wish for.

He lets himself slacken under his brother's touch. Calloused hands tug up the hem of his shirt as his back is laid bare against the concrete, and his naked chest receives the warm ocean breeze.


	4. Chapter 4

_And all the while I'm looking for your half smile,_

_Something that will show me that you are still around._

_And all the while I'm looking for your half smile,_

_Something that will show me that you still know me,_

_Yeah, you still know me._

Daniel wakes to noises coming from the garage downstairs. With his eyes still closed, he runs the back of his hand across the empty space where Sean had been last night, in those half-real moments between dreams. He can almost still feel the warmth of Sean's body, of their intertwined fingers pressed against his chest. He didn't realise until now how much he missed sharing his brother's bed. He hasn't slept this well in years.

Foggily, he opens his eyes as his brain starts to register some of the noises. There's a couple of voices, metallic clanging and Mexican hip-hop. First thing in the morning, and Sean is already working on his cars.

_Christ, he's turning into dad._

Wearily, he swings his legs off the bed. His jeans are all he manages to find of the trail they left while tumbling upstairs last night, Sean's arm never leaving his waist, his hands finding the creases of Daniel's hips as soon as he laid his body down.

Daniel pulls on the jeans, looks in the mirror. Catches himself half-smiling as he presses his fingers to the places on his collarbone, bare chest and stomach where Sean's mouth was, again and again, last night. Daniel's always been on the lean side, but the way that Sean traced the ridges and plains of Daniel's torso, the way he spoke about Daniel's body—shit, just the way he _looked_ at Daniel... well, you'd laugh if you knew he ever called Daniel a skinny little shit.

He finds Sean's t-shirt from last night hanging on the door handle. Grabs it and goes to pull it on but, somewhat unexpectedly, finds himself pressing it against his nose and chest. The scent of cigarettes and stale beer makes his jeans go tight, sends him reeling right back to laying on Sean's bed, naked and exposed as those black skinny jeans of his were yanked off his ankles. The scent of Sean's body hovering over him, of his brother's breath warm on his…

_Fuck, what is wrong with me?_

Daniel's still not sure what this is. All he can think of right now is the contented look on Sean's face as he drifted off last night, and the low, insistent, totally-not-disturbing-in-any-way nagging of his sixteen-year-old reptile brain telling him he wants to do it again. God, does he want to do it again.

Daniel's still lost in that thought when he hears the almighty _crash_ of metal against glass reverberate through the house. He fumbles the t-shirt over his head, cursing his lanky mess of arms, and outright sprints to the top of the stairs. Downstairs, he can hear Sean yelling at the top of his lungs, screaming obscenities in two languages as Daniel races down the steps two at a time.

"Sean?!"

He's made it a good way across the office before he even notices the sharp pain racing through the bottom of his foot.

"Ah, shit!" he gasps, limping his foot into his hand and turning around to witness the trail of red footprints he's left across the concrete floor. His other foot starts screaming in pain.

 _Fuck_. He was so caught up with looking for Sean that he didn't even notice—the entire floor is covered with the shattered remains of the grimy window that previously separated the office from the garage. On the other side of the yawning, empty frame, he sees that the glass of the shiny black car Sean had been working on has suffered the same fate.

Wincing with pain, he slowly, gingerly, picks his way around the edge of the shimmering debris towards the office door. "Sean? Where are you?" He rounds the corner in time to see Sean limping out into the street.

" _Motherfuckers!_ " Sean screams into the morning stillness, broken only by the screeching tyres of a car speeding away.

"Sean! What happened? Are you okay?"

Sean's breathing is quick, his hands shaking as he struggles to close the broken garage door. Daniel nudges him aside and shuts it with his power, which explodes with unexpected ferocity from his fingertips.

"Thanks, _enano_."

Adjusting to the sudden darkness, the sudden silence, Daniel surveys the bomb site that used to be Sean's garage. The car is minus most of its windows and rear windshield, with a huge, ugly scratch down its side. A wire rack shelf leans precariously against it. There's shit strewn everywhere, mixed in amongst the broken glass. Hell, they even busted all the beer in the old fridge, leaving its door hanging.

"Fuck man, look what they did to Martinez's car," Sean groans. "That's gonna cost me."

"Where's your phone? We should call the cops!"

"Cops?" Sean laughs darkly. "We don't call the cops here, man. What fucking cop is going to side against those guys with a one-eyed _norteamericano_?"

"Well, we gotta do _something_!" Daniel practically shouts. He turns back towards the street, but there's nothing to see now but a closed door and the thin streak of morning light peeking through the angled gap underneath it. _Who would do this?_

"Nothing we can do," Sean retorts. "Not with Bautista's..." suddenly, he bursts into a fit of coughing and spluttering.

Daniel rushes to grab him as he slumps against a workbench, gripping his side.

"Oh my God, Sean. You're hurt."

He scans the room quickly, finds a cleanish rag amongst the wreckage that he presses into Sean's fist to stop him from coughing any more blood onto his shirt.

"I'm fine, _enano_. It doesn't even hurt that bad," he says unconvincingly, his arm still wrapped around his stomach as he doubles over again.

"Shut up, and just sit your ass down. That was scary, Sean. I mean, are you telling me you know these guys? Who's— who's Bautista?"

Sean shakes his head, and the sudden movement sets him off-balance. He grabs Daniel's arm for support. "Yeah, I fucking know them. But Ramon wasn't here. Those were just his stupid thugs. Beating me up for him until I give him his money. If Ramon Bautista decided to pay me a visit, I— well, I probably wouldn't be alive."

"So... that's it, isn't it? This is why you sent the letter, asking for help?" Daniel says as it all starts to sink in. Too quickly, and Daniel wishes it wasn't always the most obvious answer. Just once, he wishes his big brother would prove him wrong.

"Yeah." Sean tilts his head back, presses against the rag to stem the blood and snot dripping from his nose. "I'm so sorry, Daniel. I know you're a good kid. You made your choice to not follow my stupid ass down here, to not get tangled up in my bullshit all over again. I didn't want to drag you into this, I swear. But I don't know who else to go to. I've made some stupid decisions, _enano_. And now they're making me pay."

Daniel exhales hard, and slumps against the workbench too. "Fuck, Sean."

"Hey! Language, buddy."

Daniel glares at him, indignant, and Sean almost manages a laugh before his body is wracked again with pain. "I'm sorry, dude. Sometimes I forget you're not a kid anymore."

As the heat of the day quickly builds, Daniel locks the doors and helps his brother to the worn-out couch upstairs. He sweeps up the broken glass and mops up the spilled beer and finds one still intact that he brings up to Sean, along with a half-empty bottle of clear tequila he discovers on a back shelf, to clean the cuts on his feet, as well as on Sean's arms and face.

"You know, you don't have to do this," Sean says, as Daniel perches on the edge of the coffee table, tipping tequila onto an old t-shirt.

"Shut up. I'm not the one who had my house trashed and the crap beaten out of me by some thugs. And I want to do it."

He swabs at a cut under Sean's blank left eye, just like he did for Sean those first weeks after they were reunited in Haven Point. And there's the guilt again, rising up through his gut just as quickly as it did last night. There isn't a day that Daniel doesn't think about the night he let Finn talk him into that stupid heist, the night he gave his brother that irrecoverable scar. He looks his brother in the eyes as he brushes a line of blood from his face with his thumb, knowing he will only ever be able to half-look back. He'll never stop trying to make up for it.

He looks away, blinking his eyes dry. "Take off your shirt."

"What?"

"Take your shirt off, idiot. Let me look at you. You're more black and blue than brown right now, Sean Diaz. Gotta make sure you're okay."

When Sean just sits there dumbly, he rolls his eyes. "You kidding? Are you _seriously_ too ashamed to take your shirt off in front of me? After everything we did last night?"

Sean winces. "No! It's just... this just feels weird, you know? You taking care of me."

"Well, someone's gotta," Daniel mutters. "Sean, you asked me to come down here to help. That's what I'm here to do."

Finally, with a nod, Sean pulls his shirt off. Here in the harsh, unintoxicated light of day, Daniel is shocked to see how thin Sean is now. Almost as thin as those same weeks after Haven Point, while he was still recovering from his coma. His shoulders, his arms are muscled, sure, the natural build of someone who works with their hands all day, but there's no meat on him. Like, at all. He wonders if Sean actually consumes anything other than beer and tequila, and then realizes he hasn't seen any food in the house other than the burgers and hot dogs Sean went out specifically to buy yesterday.

He turns Sean around quickly, so he doesn't see him wipe his wet eyes on his sleeve. He checks over the bruises on Sean's back, makes him lift his arms, and prods at the worst ones under his ribs.

Satisfied that Sean isn't bleeding internally—probably—he goes to find the bathroom and run a shower.

"Hey, _enano_?" Sean starts. Daniel looks back at him, and Sean's gaze immediately drops back to his hands in his lap. "Thank you. I'm— I'm glad you're here."

Daniel smiles with tired eyes. "Yeah. Me too."


	5. Chapter 5

It turns out there _is_ food in the house, once Daniel ransacks every cupboard in the kitchen. Problem is a lot of it’s out of date, and what’s left is best described as bachelor cuisine. In the top cupboard is a city of condiment bottles including, like, six kinds of hot sauce (why?). And downstairs in the back of the office, in a second fridge marked with the words 'don't open, dead inside' that's otherwise practically empty, Daniel finds an unused carton of eggs (again, _why?!_ ) that are miraculously not expired.

These, along with the leftovers of last night's hot dogs, he manages to fry up into a half-decent omelette that looks better after he smothers it in hot sauce.

By the time Sean's out of the shower, there's a steaming hot plate waiting for him on the kitchen counter, and Daniel looking pretty damn proud of himself. He can't help noticing that Sean's put on a baggy t-shirt that sighs away from his thin frame under his arms and at his ribs.

"What's this?" Sean asks. "It smells great."

Daniel shrugs. "It's okay. Taste it first."

"Okay. Uh— so you can cook now?" Sean laughs. "Since when?"

"Since I've been making my own dinner every Wednesday night for a couple of years, while Claire and Stephen are at Bible study."

Sean eyes the plate suspiciously, turning it back and forth. "You checked the expiry date on everything, right?"

Daniel sighs. "Yes Sean, I checked the expiry. We need to get you some real food."

"This—" Sean says through a mouthful of eggs, "—this is good!"

"Aren't you having any?"

"Nah. Not hungry. Still… rattled, you know?" Daniel says as he slumps onto his elbows over the counter, staring back at Sean. He's happy just to see him eating, and by the way he's tearing through the plate, he must have been seriously hungry.

Without warning, Sean leans forward and plants a kiss square on Daniel's lips. "Thank you _enano_. This is really great." His lips are still tingling, half from surprise and half from the hot sauce, when he remembers _oh yeah, I guess this is a thing we do now_.

A moment passes, and Sean looks fiendishly up at Daniel's confused face.

"So. Are we gonna talk about it?" Daniel finally asks. It's a question he's wanted to ask since he put the letter—his whole reason for being here—back in Sean's hands. But it's taken until now, with Sean eating his cooking, Sean looking so hungry and broken and vulnerable, that he's worked up the courage to demand an answer.

"Talk about what?" Sean replies.

"About what happened this morning. Last night. All of it."

Sean slowly pushes his empty plate away. "Okay. What do you wanna know?"

"Well, first of all, who were those guys? Who is Bautista?"

"No one. No one important. I just—"

"Sean, you said last night you weren't gonna lie to me anymore."

Sean exhales. "They're just— they're just guys, okay? Guys I happen to owe money to."

"Money? Like, how much money?"

"A lot of money," Sean says. "Look, I made some risky bets and lost, and now I'm having trouble paying them off. Business is crappy as it is, and those guys are scaring away my customers, and now they've ruined another car which I'm gonna have to pay to fix."

"Shit, Sean. Gambling? Really?"

Sean shakes his head angrily. "You don't know how hard it is to make any kind of decent money here, _enano_. Every time I think I'm getting ahead… Every time—" he wipes his nose with the back of his hand. "I just— I thought if I just made one big win, I could finally fix up this shithole. Hire some help, you know. Make it a real fucking garage. Make dad proud."

"So that's why you sent me the letter, asking for my help specifically? Cos you wanted me to use my power to get these guys off your back?"

"That was one part of it. But getting these guys back won't keep them away, Daniel. They'll keep coming back. If not them, the next gang. And the one after that," Sean says. He sets his jaw, hard. "What I need is to make that big win, enough to pay off those motherfuckers and still have some left over to fix this place up and run it right."

And it dawns on Daniel, what his brother is really asking, why he's really here. "You want me to help you cheat? At gambling? Against those guys— against armed gangsters?"

"Why not? You used to use your power to cheat at shit all the time."

"Uh, yeah. When we were kids. At dice. At— at goddamn… knife throwing!" He throws his hands up. "No, Sean. Not against guys with guns and who-knows-what other weapons."

He picks up Sean's dirty plate and all but throws it into the sink. By some miracle, it doesn't break. _Goddamit._ He usually uses his power for shit like this, but he really doesn't feel like using it right now.

"Daniel. _Enano._ Please, just think about it…"

"Maybe. Just— just not now. Give me time to process, okay?"

Later, Daniel's unpacking his duffel into a dusty drawer that doesn't close properly when his fingers brush something at the bottom of his bag that he completely forgot he'd packed, given everything that's happened in the last few days. He brings it out to Sean, as a kind of peace offering.

"What's that you got there?" Sean asks.

"Why don't you sit your ass up so you can take a proper look?"

"Is that..." Sean blinks as Daniel sits down next to him. "Our old PlayBox?"

Daniel nods. "Well, not _our_ old PlayBox _._ But yeah, the same one we had. I brought a few games. Thought we could play them together. You know, like old times."

"I remember how fucking excited you were that Christmas morning," Sean says, running his hands over the PlayBox's shiny black surface. "Shit, I can almost hear Dad's voice…"

" _The PlayBox is for the whole family, okay?_ " Daniel says in a mock-low tone.

" _Make sure you boys share!_ " Sean joins in. They laugh.

"Yeah, well," Daniel sighs, "so much for sharing. Claire and Stephen got me this one the year after I moved in with them. Then I saved up and bought the new one for myself this year. So I figured…" he presses the PlayBox into Sean's hands.

"What? For me?" Sean says, disbelieving.

"Yeah."

"You serious? Like, to keep?"

"Yeah, it's yours. Even after I go home."

Sean freezes, before his gaze drops onto the squat rectangle of plastic in his hands. "Yeah, of course. Thanks, _enano_. It's— that's really generous of you."


	6. Chapter 6

The sand is warm under Daniel's bare feet, even this early in the morning. To his right, the sea pulls sleepily against the shore, languidly anticipating the full heat of day. To his left, concrete shells of half-finished houses line the beach. For many of them, half-finished is too generous; half-started is more like it. Mouldering cinder blocks and rusty framework reach skyward, basking in the morning sun like the decaying bones of some great, beached sea monster.

It's like this the whole way between Sean's house and the town, and with nothing but the quick rhythm of his breaths and the fall of his feet breaking the slow crash of waves, it's enough to give Daniel a feeling of isolation, of total aloneness that starts to creep down his spine like beads of sweat.

Beaver Creek is not exactly a buzzing hive of human activity, but at least there are neighbours. _People_. He wonders, how does Sean do this? How does he live out here? The more emptiness he passes, the more the loneliness, the desperation for human connection in Sean's voice makes sense.

The loneliness has permeated the house, seeped into the walls and the furniture, and seems to weep out to slowly fill every silence between them. And there are a lot of silences. The wildfire of that first hot night under the stars and the crucible of the next morning seem to have burned through Sean's reserves of energy, leaving him charred, ashen, and defeated. Sometimes, it's like he's forgotten how to talk to people. The moment he left this morning— _guess I better get the glass to fix the car_ , he said—Daniel had to get out of that house, had to get somewhere where there were people. Life. Anything.

But as Daniel runs past the empty shells, he catches himself glancing towards them, thinking he sees a person each time. Maybe a figure welding a beam, or moving gravel and rubble from one decomposing shitheap to another. But they're nothing but ghosts. There's no-one there.

 _No wonder dad wanted to leave_.

It's Daniel's stupid luck that there's someone parked in the driveway when he lopes up off the beach onto the bare concrete of the patio. The car looks sporty, expensive, and the man waiting beside it is sharply dressed in a crisp shirt and dark trousers, taking slow drags from a cigarette.

 _Shit_.

Daniel slows to catch his breath. Wipes the matted hair out of his eyes, and walks slowly around the corner, his power already tingling in his fingertips. The man sees him and grinds his cigarette into the ground with a black-booted toe, as a final breath of smoke wafts out of his lips and over the front of his reflective aviators. The shiny sports car is empty. At least he's alone. Daniel is pretty sure he can handle one lone gangster.

" _Hola_!" the man calls out.

" _Buenos días_ ," Daniel says awkwardly, inching forward. _Nice one. Yes. Talk to the bad man like he's your grade school Spanish teacher._ But the man doesn't look like he's armed, and he's pretty sure gangsters don't say hello first if they're going to kill you. So he adds, even more awkwardly, "um— _habla inglés_?"

The man's composure breaks into a bemused smile, then a hearty laugh. " _S_ _i_. Yes, we can speak _Americano_."

He steps forward on those heavy booted feet and offers Daniel a wide hand. "I'm Martinez."

Daniel sighs in relief, his thumping heartbeat dropping from where it's been lodged just under his clenched jaw.

Martinez. He knows that name, and not just because Sean's been saying that a certain Martinez will kill him (presumably figuratively) if he doesn't go today to pick up replacement glass for the busted car in his garage. Martinez scored Sean his first job in Puerto Lobos, apprenticing for a garage the next town over. He's also been Sean's main customer since he set up his own shop.

Daniel shakes his hand. Then he looks at the chains around the office door, the mangled garage door, back at Martinez's expectant face, and decides it might be best to invite him in around back. Not like it looks like he needs the invitation, Martinez clearly knows his way around the place. Daniel's starting to feel like the guest.

He takes off his aviators and lets out a low whistle when he sees the state of the car. " _Santa Maria_. They did a job on her, huh?"

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Don't be. Not your fault. Bautista and his fucking goons."

 _Bautista_. Daniel's about to ask what he knows about that _pendejo_ , when Martinez interrupts.

"Tell Diaz I came by to give him an advance on the work. To cover the glass and the—" he waves his aviators in the direction of the car in all its sorry state, "—yeah. But I'm not paying any extra. Kid's gotta learn some responsibility."

"Sure. I'll tell him. Or you could just leave the money with me. I'll make sure he gets it."

"Thanks _amigo_. But I think I'll wait for Diaz to get back," Martinez smirks.

He turns on his heel, and is headed towards the door when Daniel stops him. "Wait. You said you know about Bautista. What can you tell me about him?"

He pauses and turns back to Daniel, folding aviators back into his palm. "I can tell you not to say that name out loud around men you don't know," he says, simply. "Now excuse me, I need to go. I didn't come here to talk to one of Diaz's fuckboys."

The back of Daniel's neck prickles with sweat. "No I'm not a— um… I'm Daniel. Daniel Diaz. I— I'm his brother." He wipes his palms on his jeans and cautiously offers his hand. Then realizes that they've already shaken hands, and pulls it quickly back.

Martinez huffs in disbelief. But his brow knits as he turns slowly back to study Daniel's face, and Daniel can practically see him fitting the pieces together. "Huh. Sean never said he had a brother."

"Hmm," Daniel shrugs. "I don't blame him. We didn't really speak a lot until… I guess, a couple of days ago."

Then, with a surprising tinge of jealousy in his voice, he blurts out, "I'm sorry, did you say fuckboys?"

"Yeah. _Dios mío_. The visitors, gentlemen and not-so-gentle men that they say Diaz gets at this house." He drags a thumb over his stubble, tutting disapprovingly. "In and out at all hours. People say that's the only way this place stays open. Garage by day, brothel by night."

Daniel's face goes hot.

Martinez grins, then bursts into a laugh. "Only messing with you," he chuckles, cuffing Daniel on the shoulder. "Diaz is a shady little _bastardo_ , but not that shady. No, there was just the one. This _gringo_."

"Finn?"

"Yeah, you know the _petero_? He was all Sean could talk about for years. How he promised he's gonna come to Puerto, how he's gonna help him fix up the place, and the two of them are gonna live together in this house in fucking _paraíso_ , like some _Brokeback_ shit."

"I know Finn," Daniel says. "But he came, didn't he? In the end?"

"Oh he came. He gets here, and your brother's face is like the moon. Never seen that one smile so much. But I tell you, I know a bad one when I see them, and I never liked this one. He sits in my bar, drinks free liquor and smokes weed until I tell him, this is a lawful business and he can't do that here and he has to get out. And Sean tells me to chill out, this is his boyfriend and he wants me to treat him like I treat Sean. Well, Sean never tried to smoke weed in my bar, did he? This guy is bad news, I said. You gotta drop him."

He scrapes a large hand over his jaw and shakes his head, for real this time. "All these years we never argued, not when Sean owed me money or when he got drunk and missed work and I had to cover for his skinny ass. But we fought that night. Because of him."

"Yeah, I guess Finn wasn't the guy any of us thought he was," Daniel says, quietly. "Sean told me. I can't believe he just… ran off."

Martinez laughs, a single dark sound. "Ran off? He didn't just run off. He splits a week—one whole fucking week—after he gets here. No help on the house, no help on the cars. Instead, he empties—like, I'm talking _empties_ —Sean's safe. Door's wide open, swinging like a donkey's _polla_ in a hurricane when Sean gets home. And the _gringo_ is gone. No message, no note. One of my guys saw him getting on a bus going north. This was what, two months ago? Your brother hasn't been the same since."

Martinez's fingers drum the hood of his broken car while his jaw clenches and unclenches, the ligaments in his muscular neck straining. "So I didn't mean to offend you, Daniel. But I gotta be careful now. Your brother has a way of getting into these situations, meeting the wrong kind of people. I don't want anything like that to happen to him again."

 _You don't know the half of it_. Or maybe he does. Something in the way Martinez talks about Sean gives the impression he knows more than Daniel gives him credit for. "Sure. Don't worry, I get it. You're just looking out for him. Thanks. For doing that— looking after him, I mean," Daniel says.

"No sweat, _mijo_. Like I said, he's like a son to me. And any son of Esteban Diaz is a son of mine."

Daniel looks at him for a long second, speechless.

First, no one calls him that. The last person who called him that was… well, you know.

And second, he hasn't heard anyone use that name in years. Claire and Stephen don't talk about him. Karen calls him _your dad_ to Daniel, like the whole doomed marriage was his fault.

It's the name of a ghost, a murdered man. A name on the 11 o'clock news.

"You knew my dad?"

Martinez nods. "Mmhmm."

"How? W— when?" the questions come tumbling out of Daniel's mouth as he wedges himself between Martinez and the door. "Did you know him when he was a kid? When he lived here?"

Martinez glares through his barrage of questions. But then something clicks, and he gives a blank smile, business-like, as he decides to humor him. "Yeah. We went to high school together. We were best friends, and growing up we had these dreams of getting out of this dust bowl town, you know? Always said we'd go north. Move to America. But we were good-for-nothings, going nowhere. We both dropped out of school in our final year."

"Ha. He would've strangled me if I even thought about dropping out."

"Well, he knew how hard it was to get back up once you let yourself down. Luckily, things were simpler back then. We both got apprentice jobs, at the same place your brother apprenticed at. But _ay,_ it was a much smaller place back in those days, just one guy, your dad, and I, and he taught us all the ropes. Got us back on track. We saved and saved, and made our dream happen.

He starts circling the car, away from Daniel. His fingers trailing as his gaze is lost somewhere beyond his reflection in the car's shiny black paintwork.

"How come dad never mentioned you?" Daniel asks, finally.

"When we moved north, your dad went straight to Washington. Seattle. Wanted a change of scenery, he said, somewhere with mountains, that wasn't hot and dry and dusty." He laughs "I think he just wanted to get as far away as he could from here, and Seattle was it."

Martinez smiles warily, shaking his head. "In the end, we were two different makes, your dad and I. He wanted a small life. A simple life. Me? I was drunk on the American dream. Hollywood and Jeeps and supermodels. I couldn't do Seattle. I needed the hot and dry and dusty. I needed other _Mexicanos_ around me, and places that could do the food right. So I told him I'd stay in L.A. for a bit, catch up with him later. But one summer in L.A. became two. Before I knew I was settled there. Started doing well for myself there. Opened a couple garages. Then a bar. We lost touch. Then I realized that L.A.'s fucked, sold everything up, and came back here. Full circle."

He looks at the bent garage door thoughtfully, as though he might escape Daniel's questions that way. Grabs the handle and tries to budge it—no go—so knocks on it twice as if for luck.

"Never got back into garages after that. Then, a few years ago, some developer asks my construction company to check out this abandoned house, next door to a block they were gonna contract us for. Said we could have the contract if we could knock the place down. I couldn't believe it. I knew the address, knew the house. It was like a sign. All those years neglecting my friend, and now I would have to profit by wiping away the last piece of him from this town. So I came to check it out. Abandoned was right, no one had lived in this place for, like, decades. It wasn't fit for the rats that were living there. No electricity, no water. Hell, almost no windows."

He stares through the gaping emptiness of the window frame between the garage and office, where there had been perfectly good glass just two days ago.

"But someone was living there, up on the second floor. Just as I'm going up the stairs, this feral kid with one eye comes at me with a knife. I take him down, and grab the knife from him, easy. Kid is so hungry and so weak he can barely stand up. I tell him straight away that he's trespassing and he needs to get out, but he keeps shouting, _no, this is my dad's house, no, you get out_. And I say, this house belongs to Esteban Diaz and even if he hasn't been back in twenty years it's still private property, so he needs to leave. And the boy says—and I can still hear it, as real as if he was standing at the top of those stairs right now."

He looks up the empty stairway, then back at Daniel. " _Esteban está muerto. I'm his son._ "

Daniel's stomach clenches. He pictures Sean, cold and hungry. Sean, sitting in a dark corner of this shuttered house, with only a knife by his side, just waiting for all the demons they'd evaded in their past to catch up with him.

"Shit," he says on an exhale. "So, all of this… everything Sean has, everything he's built. It's thanks to you."

"I wouldn't say that," Martinez retorts. "Your brother is a good guy. Works hard. I just gave him the jump start he needed. I guess I felt guilty. I let all those years pass and never bothered to call to check on my friend or share my success—or even tell him that I finally quit the American dream and come back home for some of that 'simple life'. Now he was dead, and his son was lost, needed help, needed a home, needed _food_. I couldn't help him anymore, but I could help his son."

He beams at Daniel. "And now look. There's two of you. Look at you—fucking mirror image of Esteban. How old are you, anyway?"

"Sixteen."

Martinez nods knowingly. "Same age we were when we quit school and started working on cars. At that age, you need something different, some adventure. You live in the States?"

"Yessir. In Beaver Creek, Oregon… you probably haven't heard of it. With my grandparents— my mom's mom and dad."

"Oregon. That's a long way," Martinez's eyebrows raise approvingly. "And you came here by yourself?"

"Yeah."

He looks at Daniel differently now, as if sizing him up in a whole new light. "Like I said: boys need adventure. Just maybe don't get caught up in all of Sean's adventures, okay?"

He edges past Daniel to go into the office, and deftly starts dialling the combination into the safe that squats in the corner. "I'll leave the money in here. Not that I don't trust you, but it's a lot, and Puerto's not as safe as it used to be. And _dios mío_ , don't let your brother gamble it away before he's bought my car some new windows." Daniel watches, eyes wide, as he takes a stack of bills from his pocket and places it in the safe.

"You know about that too?" Daniel asks, with an unexpected edge. "Then why didn't you stop him before it got out of control?"

Martinez closes the safe. Stands up slowly. "Daniel. _Mijo_ ," he says in a stern voice. "Let me say something to you: we all need to make the mistakes that God wants us to make. It's not my job to stop Sean from making every mistake that could hurt him. But I can tell you, if he does anything that might destroy his life again, I will protect him. Like when he gambled away your father's house."

Daniel pauses, heavily.

"He tried to bet on this house?"

"Not only bet, he lost. Our old friend Bautista owns the company that's developing the block next door. He's been eyeing this whole stretch of houses for years. But I called in an old favor for Sean. Made a deal with Bautista to take cash for the bet instead. This place isn't worth a lot, but it'll still take Sean years to pay them off. But at least he'll have a roof over his head."

Daniel stares up at his reflection in Martinez's aviators as the man brushes past him towards the back door. "So if you have a problem with your brother's gambling, I suggest you tell him about it, not me."


	7. Chapter 7

_Further on, the pavement starts to crack._

_This is where we fell, it's where we fell._

_Where smoke turns to haze I hesitate,_

_And I choose to leave the way I came._

Daniel needs time to cool off, to process.

He tears across the hot sand on bare feet, his shirt tossed aside in a heap. When he hits the water's edge he dives in head-first, gasping as he ducks under the first wave, then the second. Paddling hard. Just concentrating on kicking with all his strength, on putting one arm out in front of the other.

It's almost enough to keep the rage inside him contained. Almost.

He surfaces only when the muscles in his arms and chest start screaming for air. Just for a half-breath, then straight back into the constant rolling roar underneath. His face just inches above the rippling sand.

Down here, there's nothing but emptiness. Down here, there's nothing he can destroy.

He closes his eyes and swims until his body feels one with the water. Riding the tide's current as it drags him out, kicking and pulling against it when it pushes him back towards the shore.

He knows how not to feed the rage, has learnt over the years all the ways to starve it, to deprive it of the oxygen it craves. Distraction is one of them. Back home, he's used to going on long, punishing runs through the frozen woods, down roads covered in freshly-fallen snow. When his lungs burn for air and his head has no room for any thoughts other than the instincts that are keeping him alive, there's no room for his power.

But today, as he concentrates on not turning the beach into a blast site, his thoughts are fractured, fraying at the edges. Like through a crack in a ship's hull they seep in, between carefully controlled breaths, until there are so many of them that they start to churn, tumbling over one another inside his skull. These thoughts over how much his feelings for his brother have changed in the last two days, and yet how he still can't make sense of the things Sean's done, the stupid decisions he's always made.

Not just the decisions of six years ago, those that endangered both their lives to run from his responsibility—all of it to escape here, to Puerto Lobos. Putting his own kid brother and Karen and Claire and Stephen and Chris in between himself and his own blame. No, not only those irresponsible decisions, those stupid mistakes, but all the ones since.

When Daniel's body starts to beg for breath he staunchly refuses, kicking even harder towards the bottom.

A new life. That was supposed to be what all that risk, all that pain and heartache was for. Six years without Sean at his side, without the brother who had once been his role model, would have been worth it if it meant Sean could be free.

But Sean isn't free at all. He's a prisoner in a jail of his own creation. He's squandered it all, all that suffering and sacrifice.

In the depths of his oxygen-deprived thoughts, he can hear Claire saying, _that brother of yours, so much promise._ _What a waste_. He used to get angry when she spoke about Sean like that. Now he realizes that, like in so many other ways, she was right.

When he finally surfaces, he's so far out that his toes can barely graze the bottom. The light on the sea all around him is dazzling, his ears are ringing with the crash of waves. Beyond that, silence. His hands trace wide circles in the water as he turns around to look back at how far out he's come.

Through the haze of heat and sea spray, he can see the house and the wide beach that stretches away to either side of it.

There was this postcard, the one his dad kept pinned over his desk in their house back in Seattle. Esteban always talked about this spit of sand like it was not only one of the finest in Mexico, but in the whole world. _And your old papi has a house there, mijo._ _Can you believe it? My very own seaside mansion. One day I'm gonna retire there, far away from you two shits. And when you and your brother come visit we'll have beers and asada on the beach._

Their dad's house. The only piece of their father they have left, and it was almost in the hands of criminals. To be torn down, wiped from the earth forever.

And the real tragedy of it all would've been if he _hadn't_ come here, if Martinez hadn't saved it and he never had a chance to see it before it was destroyed. The tragedy is, Daniel realizes, that the house would have stayed the same in his imagination, the seaside mansion of his father's stories, gleaming white under the Sonoran sun, his dad's old _huaraches_ under the arches of a deep patio, and a rising plume of smoke from the grill out back.

Instead the reality of it is so much more… well, _real_. Daniel feels like he knows his dad better now. That this was all he wanted from life. That this, and his two sons, would've been enough for him. It's not the gleaming white mansion—it's not much of a gleaming white anything—but it was his dad's dream.

That feeling alone, the feeling of being closer to his father than he has been since he was a boy, that alone should make it worth saving.

And, as Daniel lets himself float onto his back, turning his face up to face the noonday sun overhead, he slowly realizes that this is the thing about Sean that has been getting under his skin all this time. From that first afternoon when he arrived, walking up the weed-choked driveway towards the chained-up door, all the way to the empty cupboards and the broken window that Sean won't fix because _it's not important. Just forget there was a window there._

Daniel knows he has no right to compare. He's had a privileged life. PlayBoxes and puppies and cars for birthdays.

But Sean has had _six_ _years_.

Six fucking years, and he's done nothing, has nothing to show for it. A business that can only be called a one-man charity. A home that's little more than a squatter's den, literally falling apart around him, betting fodder for card games.

And then Sean having the nerve not to say a thing about it. Instead, playing the victim this whole time.

Even as he led Daniel upstairs to the bedroom of that very same house, wasted for the first time in his life. Taking advantage of Daniel's swirling thoughts and all that goddamn pity as he took his younger brother's cock between his lips, ignoring his weak pleas of _Sean, don't. Sean, we shouldn't_. Knowing damn well Daniel couldn't stop him. Not while that high, that drunk and not with his dick in another person's mouth—even if that person was a dude, and that dude was his brother.

And then hoping, as Daniel came hard, gasping _holy shit_ and _that was awesome_ and _I fucking love you, Sean_ , that whatever sick, sorry version of love he felt that night would be enough to make him see past a lifetime of wrongs.

Daniel plunges back into the water, kicking hard for the bottom. But this time, even the screaming in his lungs isn't enough to keep one thought from flooding his mind.

What would their dad say, if he could have seen his home—his sons—like that? His memory so completely dishonored, his dream so thoroughly pissed on.

By the time Sean gets back, he's got it under control, he thinks. At any rate, he's no longer seething—just vaguely mad. He's so exhausted from the swim back that he's not even totally sure at what anymore. He's got his earbuds in, blasting music until his anger is pummelled into the kind of flat, semi-cathartic, pissed-off-at-the-world-ness that's not at anything in particular, just part of being a teenager.

Just another one of the ways he's learnt to control the rage.

When he hears Sean call his name from around the side of the house, he doesn't even answer. Just waits for Sean to find him sitting in a plastic chair on the patio, his skin flecked with salt and sand, his hair still matted from the sea.

"Hey _enano_ , didn't you hear me?"

Daniel pulls out an earbud. A tinny bass beat punches into the air. "What?"

"Uh, never mind. You went for a swim?"

 _Duh_. Daniel yanks out the other earbud, clicks the music off. "How's the water?" Sean asks, when he doesn't answer.

"Okay," Daniel mutters. "Kinda cold."

Sean eyes him strangely as he drops into the other chair. He takes Daniel's glass of fizzy drink from the table between them, takes a swig.

"Oh Jesus, _fuck_!" he says, coughing. "What is in this? Demon piss?"

"Shut up. It's just Coke mixed with Sprite." He grabs the glass back from Sean and downs a huge gulp.

"That's rank, dude. All that sugar is bad for you," he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before pulling out a cigarette. "And you're gonna melt that pretty smile of yours." His grin quickly fades when Daniel meets it with a cold stare. "You know we have beer, right?"

"No we don't."

"No way. Did you check the fridge down here?"

"Uh, yeah," Daniel says flatly. "Bad guys smashed it all, remember? And you finished the rest in the upstairs fridge last night."

Sean blinks out at the glare of the beach, towards the sun beginning to make its slow descent towards the sea. He shakes his head as he lights his cigarette. "Right. Man, how could I forget?"

"Dunno. How could you forget, Sean?" Daniel says, glaring over at him. When Sean continues to look back at him with a bewildered look, he pushes up out of his chair. "Whatever man. I'm gonna go take a shower. Maybe after, I'll go into town and get you some more fucking beer."

"Whoa, whoa," Sean calls after him. He catches up to Daniel inside the cool of the house. His hand brushes Daniel's wrist, and Daniel immediately recoils. " _Enano_ , what's wrong?"

"Nothing," he lies, looking away. If they're not going to talk about things, he figures, why not add this to the list. Instead he adds flippantly, "Oh, and your friend Martinez came by. Left a bunch of money in the safe."

Sean's brow furrows as he inches towards the office. "Okay. And that's got you all worked up because…?" Daniel says nothing as he follows him, leaning against the door. Deep in the dim of the office, the combination lock whirrs under Sean's quick fingers.

"Dude. There's like a hundred grand in here! Did he say what it was for?"

"An advance," Daniel replies, "to buy what you need to fix the car."

Sean stands as he starts to thumb through the bills. "Well I've got some bad news for him. I talked to the windshield guy today. This isn't gonna cover the damage."

"It's not supposed to. He said it's an advance on the original work. The extra damage is your problem."

"Of course it is," Sean mutters, then kicks the safe door so hard it bounces back. " _Fuck_! Not cool, Martinez, so not cool." He counts and recounts the stack of bills in his hands, and Daniel can already see him hatching some plan, some scheme to wheedle the rest of the money out of Martinez.

"You're sure that was all he said? He's not gonna pay me more?" Sean asks. And Daniel decides he's finally tired of it—tired of pretending that everything's okay.

"That was it," Daniel starts, coldly. "But he did tell me more. He also told me about Finn taking all your savings. About how you bet on dad's house. How you lost the bet— lost _our dad's home._ And how this," he stabs his finger at the stack in Sean's fist, "is just him saving your ass yet again. So the least you can do is be grateful, and suck it up. Because honestly, Sean? This is getting pretty pathetic."

Sean looks up at him, his gaze square and hard. His empty eye burns through Daniel, more intensely even than his actual stare, like he's really seeing Daniel for the first time since he arrived.

"Huh. You know, Martinez had no fucking right telling you those things—"

"—no, maybe he didn't," Daniel says, dipping his head a little. "But Sean, you can't keep expecting him to bail you out every time. And then when that doesn't work, expecting me to bail you out. Why didn't you tell me the truth about Finn? About the house?"

" _Enano_ , it's not _—_ "

"Stop calling me that! I know what you're trying to do. You've tried to hide how bad things really are from me before. But I'm not a goddamn kid anymore; you don't have to do that this time. You can tell me the truth."

He sighs, letting his voice lower a little. "You asked me to come here to help, you said it was to help you fight, and then— and then when I find out I don't even know what I'm really fighting for…" His words fade as he looks at Sean, whose gaze has fallen to one side. With a sharp exhale, Sean shoves the money back into the safe.

"How can I trust you? I just wanna hear the truth from you Sean. No lies. Cos if it's a lie that's keeping me here, I might as well go—"

"—then fucking go!" Sean yells, slamming the safe closed. "But don't come in here on your high horse with your goddamn morals and tell me how to deal with my shit. I told you a little white lie, get over it."

"I asked you about Finn that first night. You told me he just left. You didn't tell me it was with _all your money_. That's more than a little white lie."

"What was I supposed to tell you?" Sean snaps. "He came here, we fucked like rabbits for a week, and then he stole all my money and left me in a bind where I had to gamble away my fucking _home_ to survive?" He leans over Daniel, and even though Daniel is the taller brother now, there's an edge to Sean's voice that makes him feel all of ten years old again, begging for a toy and being told to get some fucking perspective. "So I left out some details. So what? "

But Daniel's not so easily intimidated anymore. Not after years of dealing with the guys at school who still give him shit about his dead father or absent mother or criminal brother. Not with the power that, even now, pulses in the hollow of his palm. "Those are some pretty important details, Sean," he says through clenched teeth. "This is dad's house we're talking about. _Dad's dream_. It's all we have left of him. How could you even think about betting on it?"

Sean lets out a dark chuckle, shaking his head at the ground. "Is that what this is about? Dad's dream? Let me remind you, in case you forgot: dad is dead. Dad's dream is dead. All he left us is this shithole. Don't you think I had dreams? Don't you think I wanted to do something with all this, to do something with _my life_ , to make our dad proud?"

"You keep saying that, _make our dad proud_ ," Daniel seethes, "like you're actually trying—"

"—you don't think I'm fucking trying?" Sean shouts. He flings his arms out across the cluttered office, at the letters D-I- and half an A spattered in red paint on the garage's far wall. "Do you think all this came for free? I _was_ trying. I was actually _getting somewhere_. Finn was supposed to be here with me. We always said we were gonna build it together. But I guess this place was too much of a disappointment for him, just like it was for you. Maybe he expected Cabo, goddamn happy hour every day. He crapped out on me, hard. But I loved him, Daniel. And when that fucking _hijo de puta_ decided to take everything and abandon me, I literally had nothing left."

Sean's hand goes to his mouth, searching for a cigarette that's not there, then starts desperately patting down his pockets. He pushes past Daniel, back outside towards the late afternoon heat and his pack of smokes on the table.

He pauses in the doorway.

"Do you really think I would've asked you to come here if I had a choice?" Sean says. "Did you think I wanted to disturb your perfect fucking life, to shame myself any more in Claire and Karen's eyes, and risk your safety again, if I had any other option? You're the only other person I have left, _enano_. The only other person I ever loved. And now just watch—you're going to abandon me too."

***

Daniel's got the shower running, his still-damp board shorts kicked into a pile across the bathroom. He leans over the sink, staring himself down in the mirror. Thinking about the worn duffel bag he's just pulled out of a half-closed drawer that's now on Sean's bed, waiting to be packed.

_Fuck!_

And the mirror cracks, just a single hairline snaking from left to right across the blemished glass, before Daniel manages to get his power back in check. He clenches his fists into tight balls at his side. He can still feel the kinetic energy still roiling under his palm.

He hates arguing with Sean. Absolutely, totally, fucking hates it. For the last six years, all he's had of Sean were memories, and too many were of those terrible last few months, where all they seemed to do was fight. It wasn't how he wanted to remember his brother, but as the years went by, it became all that he had. It had become harder and harder to remember anything but the fights, the hard times, the times when they were struggling just to survive, when everything seemed to go wrong. He could hardly recall the good memories from before, like falling asleep in Sean's lap during midnight movie marathons, or riding on Sean's back as they chased their dad around their yard.

Part of the reason he came here, he's realized, was the hope that he'd have a chance to hit reset. To make new memories. But it's been two fights in two days, and now Daniel's mentally packing his bag. He doesn't know how much longer he can stay here. 

And yet, another part of him wants to stay, so badly. That is, if any of this was ever even real. Looking at the skinny, naked teen staring back in the mirror, he'll never know what Sean sees there. If anything, this whole thing was probably just another of his schemes, another deception. But then why can't he help thinking that it _feels real_ , when he thinks of Sean's hands following the crease along the centre of his stomach, slowly downwards through the dark hair, before wrapping around his—

No. How can it be real when it was just another lapse in his self-control, a drunken moment of shitty judgement and pity. Sean taking advantage of him, manipulating him like he always does. It's probably best if he leaves before Sean can do it again. After all, he can't help Sean, not in any of the ways he wants him to.

Maybe Sean was right. Maybe they were always meant to part ways.

He gets into the shower, letting the warm water rinse the sand and salt from his skin, washing the strain out of his muscles underneath. He shuts his eyes and starts thinking about what he'll tell Karen when he gets back to Away, when she asks why he's returned early.

He barely hears the soft thump on the door. " _Enano_?"

_I told him not to fucking call me that anymore._

"I'm in the shower!" Daniel shouts back.

"Can I come in?"

"Go away! I'll be done in a minute."

Daniel hears the door click as Sean tries to push it open. He holds it shut with his power.

"Yeah, nice one, Daniel. I know there's no lock on this door. Let me in."

"I said no."

"What the hell—"

"I don't want to talk to you, Sean."

His banging gets more insistent, like he's trying to bash the door in with his shoulder. "Are you kidding me? This is _my_ _house_ , Daniel. Let me the fuck in!" 

He imagines Sean, angry and crazed, on the other side of that door, and winces. He can't keep this up, Sean will just hurt himself. And anyway, what could Sean possibly do to change his mind now? He releases his grip on the door, and Sean comes bursting in a second later.

"What the fuck was that, Daniel? What happened to never using your power against me?"

"Yeah well, what happened to never lying to me?"

Sean is silent for a long moment. He glares at Daniel, naked and wet, hard enough that Daniel instinctively turns to face the wall. "Why are you here, Sean? 'Cos if it's to apologize, you're too late."

"Yeah, no shit. I saw your bag on the bed," Sean says. "Wow. So you're really gonna do it, huh?"

"Do what?"

"You're actually going to leave, just run away? Unbelievable. You lecture me about trying, and now you're not even gonna try? Look at me, _enano_." A strong, calloused hand lands on Daniel's shoulder, and he pulls away.

"Turn around and fucking look at me!" Sean barks. "Or are you seriously embarrassed about me seeing you naked? After everything we've done?"

Daniel turns, slowly. Typical Sean, there's not even a curtain on this piece of shit shower, so his brother's just standing there under the spray, water running off his hair, the front of his t-shirt and shorts rapidly soaking through. "What do you want, Sean?"

When he answers, his voice is low, measured. "Remember those epic fights we used to have? The ones in the cabin, and at the Farm. God, you'd lose it at me nearly every day. You were just this white-hot ball of rage."

 _Maybe that wasn't me_ , Daniel thinks. _Maybe that was because of the company_ _I had_.

"But we could always work it out. By the end of the night, just you and me in our sleeping bag, we knew it'd be okay."

He brushes the wet fringe from Daniel's face. Daniel flinches under his touch.

"What happened to that, Daniel? What happened to trying—"

"—I am trying! Fuck's sake, I've tried—"

"—yeah, for two days!" Sean shouts. It echoes off the hard edges of the small bathroom. "Two whole days, and you think you already know what it's like to be me, to live my shitty fucking life." He leans in closer, close enough that Daniel can feel the warmth from his body, wet clothes brushing his skin. "We're different people now, Daniel. I get that. We never understood each other, not when we were kids, and we're not going to understand each other straight away now. But all I'm asking is for us to try to work it out, like we used to. To not just… give up!"

He shoves his hand hard against Daniel's bare chest, pinning him to the wall, and Daniel knows now why he flinched before. Sean's touch against his naked skin is electric. It sends sparks radiating across his body in every direction, makes his heart thump faster… shit, it even makes him a little hard.

"But too bad. I'm not letting you leave, not like this. Not after what it took to get you down here." His voice turns steely, uncompromising. "You are going to help me fix this, and we are going to make it right. Both of us. You and me. _Hermano y hermano_."

And Daniel realizes this is all he wanted from Sean all along. Some sign that he's making an effort. That he _actually_ _gives a shit_. He sees the fire in both of Sean's eyes, unquenched by the water pouring over his face, the muscles pulsing in his neck, the iron set of his stubbled jaw… and fuck, he is _hot_. Daniel doesn't know for sure if he's ever felt this way about a boy before, but he sure as hell hasn't felt this way about any girls.

He wants to—God, he fucking _needs_ to—he leans forward and kisses Sean. Hard. It's enough to knock Sean off-balance on the slippery tiles, but Daniel's got him by the small of his back, and suddenly it's Sean who's against the wall while Daniel covers his mouth with rough, inexperienced kisses, his hands fumbling under Sean's soaking t-shirt as he yanks it over Sean's arms and head.

Sean grins cockily. "So I take it you're not leaving?"

"Shut up. I'm still fucking mad at you," Daniel says, unbuttoning Sean's shorts.

"Uh, okay— wow." Sean gasps as Daniel reaches into his shorts to grab his growing hard-on. "If this is you mad, remind me to insult the crap out of you more often."

Daniel rolls his eyes. He pulls Sean's shorts down into a wet heap around his ankles, then rubs the growing tent in Sean's boxers before pulling them down too. As Sean struggles to untangle his feet from the sodden fabric, Daniel drops to the floor and slides his brother's cock into his mouth.

"Motherf—" Sean starts, but Daniel's already concentrating hard. Bass thumping in his chest, waves rushing over his ears. Believe it or not, he hasn't had a lot of reference material on how to do this. But he's always had a competitive streak, and he wants to make this feel as good for Sean as Sean made it feel for him, the only way he knows how.

"Daniel, _enano_ ," Sean says, lifting Daniel up by his chin until they're face-to-face. "Dude. Relax."

"Am I… is it… not good?" Daniel asks.

"Are you kidding? It's fucking incredible. Just… I know you're really mad," Sean grins, "but seriously, just relax."

And Daniel does.

He's back down on the cool floor, taking Sean as smoothly as the slow drag of the sea he swam through just hours ago. He lets the water crash all around him. He swims in the ripples of Sean's body, the waves that travel from his toes up his legs, to the flat of his stomach, all the way out to his arms and to the hands that grab Daniel's shaggy hair, coercing him to sink, to dive just a little bit deeper.

He relinquishes control, letting himself be guided by the flow of Sean's deep, guttural breaths. Gradually, they quicken, turning shallow, tumbling over one another as his voice crests like a wave about to crash.

He gasps for air as one wave washes through Sean's body, then another, flooding him. He's still gasping when Sean pulls him up and pushes his back to the wall and presses his tongue into his mouth. His stomach somersaults like he's just been thrown ass-over-heels by the surf, but Sean's grin when he's done is quick and dirty, and the way he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand makes Daniel want to kiss him again.

But there's hardly any time because another wave washes over him. His body this time, as Sean eagerly reciprocates, dropping to his knees in front of Daniel, staring at each part of his anatomy with a kind of reverence that makes Daniel wonder if Sean is really looking at the same person that he sees when he looks in the mirror. Letting his mouth take over where his eyes leave off.

Daniel tenses as his brother starts to work on him. Sean is cocky, he _knows_ he's fucking good at this, is so confident in a way that Daniel hasn't seen him be in goddamn forever, and the worst part is that only turns him on more. He's had more practice, sure—even practice on Daniel—but Daniel's still in awe of how he wrings each pulse, each tremor from places he didn't even know he had.

 _Finn's loss, I guess_.

" _Enano_ ," Sean says, placing a hand on Daniel's stomach. "You can relax."

It's not something Daniel has ever really thought about before—especially not when he's, you know, _flying solo_. He tries, letting himself open up a little under Sean's touch as Sean runs his hand down his side encouragingly.

"I can't, Sean. I'm gonna— I might lose control."

"You won't, Daniel. You didn't the other night. Trust yourself. Let go."

Daniel closes his eyes, letting himself ease deeper into Sean's eager mouth. And in that moment he remembers the warm concrete under his back, the firelit smoke and canopy of stars spinning overhead. He can almost feel the warm sea breeze on his naked skin. It's fucking epic.

He lets go a little more, and hears Sean grunt his approval when his hands cup the back of Sean's head, when he starts to buck his hips, letting his body go where it wants to be. A moan builds in his throat, and he lets it out, these sexy-as-fuck sounds he's never heard himself make.

He unloads into Sean with a force he's never felt before. And when he opens his eyes, the air is filled with ten thousand tiny droplets.

A rainstorm suspended in space.

"Has anyone ever told you how good you look wet?" Sean says.

They're towelling off out in the hallway, near the top of the stairs. The whole bathroom is drenched, thanks to Sean suggesting he _let go_ and come like a fucking animal. The thought of anything like this happening in the Reynolds' house mortifies him.

"Shut up," Daniel retorts, shaking a towel through his shaggy hair. "You know, we're lucky I didn't turn this place into a pile of rubble."

Sean shrugs. "Bautista would've been happy. Might've even gotten me out of my debt." Daniel looks at him sidelong. He doesn't know exactly what's suddenly made him into such a cocky asshat, but they're talking about it now, and that's all that matters.

"Anyway, the sex was worth it. Hell, hearing you moan like that was worth it," Sean says, tugging his dick. Daniel goes to shove him, but Sean's arms are around him before he can, pulling him close to his still-damp skin.

"Yeah, yeah. Still, dad wouldn't have been happy."

Sean frowns at him. "About the sex? Uh— yeah, I think he would've freaked just a little bit."

"No, doofus," Daniel says, thumping Sean's chest. "I meant if I wrecked his house. And yeah, don't think he'd be too happy about the whole blowjob thing either."

"Well, he did want us to get along more," Sean smirks. "I'd say we're doing that pretty well, right _enano_?"

Daniel rolls his eyes. _Jesus Christ, how is he hard again?_

Sean exhales, and his expression falls blank, then goes serious. "Look, if this place, dad's house—dad's _dream_ —means that much to you… Come on. There's something I wanna show you."

Sean leads him downstairs, slowing only for them to grab some shorts from the bedroom that they yank on while hobbling down the stairs, one leg at a time. Out the rear door and across the patio, scorching their feet on the concrete in the late afternoon sun. Down across the sand, until they reach the bare wall of the half-built house next door.

Leaning against the wall in its shade is a simple wooden cross, painted blue. It's engraved with a name: _Esteban_.

Daniel freezes as he watches Sean squat in front of it to move a couple of burned-out _veladoras_ over to the side.

"That's not him," Daniel stammers. "He's not— he's not actually buried here… is he?"

Sean shakes his head, sits back on his haunches in the sand. He sighs, looking back at Daniel. "No. He's not."

"I don't understand. Then… why?"

"It's…" Sean starts, fingers reaching to pull a dried-out flower from a jar while he searches for the right phrase. "…What's the word? _Symbolic_." Daniel slowly lowers himself onto the sand next to him. "Of course he's not here. But that doesn't stop it _feeling_ like he's here, does it?"

He takes Daniel's wrist, places the flat of his palm onto the warm sand. "Haven't you felt him here, this whole time?"

Daniel can feel his power in his hands again, but it's different now. He feels… strong. Connected. Like he's tapping into the energy that moves the ebb and flow of the waves themselves. Like he has a place here, has roots here. He remembers that afternoon when he first walked into Sean's garage: _it smells like dad. Fuck, it smells like home_.

"Yeah. I've felt him here. Since the second I walked in."

Sean nods. "I just wanted to show you. I know this is dad's house, Daniel. I live with his ghost every day." He shuffles around in his back pocket, finally pulling out their dad's old lighter. "I didn't make a bet on it because I wanted to. I did it because I had no other choice."

From next to the makeshift memorial, Sean takes a half-burnt candle and lights it.

"But it doesn't matter where dad is, or where his house is. What matters is that he knows we love each other, that we're looking out for each other." He covers Daniel's hand with his, pressing his fingers deeper into the warm sand.

"If that's true, _enano_ , then he's wherever we are."


End file.
